The Lost Art Of The Tease: Why So Many People Find Sex Unsatisfying

We are the generation of instant gratification. We want what we want, and we want it now, and we can't and won't f*cking wait for it.

We have easy access to absolutely everything: food, relationships, clothes, sex, entertainment,“news.”

The world is at our fingertips. Our eyes bear witness to all the contents of the giant, massive universe with the simple “click, click, click” of a keyboard.

With dilated pupils and clenched jaws, we overnight our online shopping; we take to Tinder and maniacally swipe left and right with the speed of wildfire.

We incessantly press the elevator buttons with a hyper-irritated urgency in hopes of quickening its arrival, and we order our Seamless dinners from the comfort of the back seat of a taxi so our food is delivered and ready to be ingested the very moment we unlock the doors to our apartments (and we're pissed if we have to wait a millisecond longer).

Our souls, intellects and, most importantly, our sex lives have all suffered whilst caught up in the rapid speed of our quick-fix culture.

It's not so different than the falsified feel-goods of a drug high.

Take a pill, throw back the shot and feel temporarily awesome and inhumanely self-assured only to wake up feeling like your life is nothing but a vast empty space. A vacant void that will never be filled.

We're a generation of professionals who have mastered the short-lived adrenaline spike of excitement, the cheap thrill of the “insta-fix,” but have miserably failed at conquering the fine art of the tease.

The t-e-a-s-e. Oh, being in the wonderful throes of the painfully awesome sexual tease is such a rare occurrence these days. Doesn't it get you hot to just think about it?

The “let's take it oh-so slowly, indulgently draw it out until you're pulling the hair out of your head, biting your lower lip until it HURTS, begging, swearing, cursing and trembling because you want it so bad” tease.

Isn't it the palpable heat of pent-up desire that finds us lost in the fantasy of lust and sexual wonder?

If we want to get really down and dirty, let's dare to get real: Isn't sex more of a psychological game than a physical game?

Isn't it all about desiring something so badly but not being able to get it right away?

Isn't it the mental back and forth, the unattainability that leaves us hopelessly daydreaming about twisted sheets and hot bodies when we're supposed to be sitting at our desks, working between the hours of nine and five?

Disclaimer: I'm a sex-positive lady who -- in NO way -- is here to shame women and men for having sex right away (to each their sexual own); that's not what this conversation is about.

I'm posing the oh-so simple yet oh-so complicated question: Is our “need it now, need it now, need it now” culture the very reason so many of us are left sexually unsatisfied?

Have we lost the fine art of the tease in the turbulent sea of hookup apps and keyboard clicks?

When there is no mental stimulation, there is no sexual stimulation

The act of sex doesn't start with touching or kissing -- it starts with conversation. It starts when the brain is stimulated by words.

Words that cut deep into the crux of our brains and are so cutting that they leave imprints in our memory.

A pressing conversation, a heated debate, a passionate rant, witty banter, a deeply personal reveal -- that's what plants the sexual seeds.

Stimulating the mind stimulates our sexuality with a fiercer, longer-lasting intensity than gazing into cleavage or steel-cut abs.

When there is no tension, there is no release

The key ingredient to steamy sex is the buildup of tension. There is nothing like tension so thick we can literally feel it hanging in the air. And all we want to do is grab it.

But we can't. So what do we do?

We long for it. We pine for it. It's always there, lingering in the back of our minds as we go about our day.

A little piece of our brain is always thinking about it as we grocery shop, type our lives away, converse and put food into our mouths.

And then, when we finally get our dirty little fingers on it, when we are finally able to touch, see and taste it -- the release is absolutely mind-blowing.

It's ecstasy without a pill. It's the sole reason sex is the driving force behind our bad decisions, questionable choices and irrational actions.

When the tease is absent, so is the tension. And when there is no tension, there is no release.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

When there is no seduction, there is no satisfaction

We want to be seduced. The ultimate goal is for you to eventually rip our clothes off, but make us tirelessly work for it first.

Give us a subtle taste of your mystical sexual prowess and then viciously pull away. We're human beings; we love to be tortured.

How can we be satisfied by anything that is so easily handed to us? Aren't our greatest assets the things we labored over the hardest?

It's akin to slowly unwrapping a present. Taking your time to untangle the satin ribbons and delicately unwrap the shiny paper -- makes getting your hands on the glorious gift so much better.

When there is no devotion, there is no emotion

In order for sex to be unabashedly stimulating and undeniably exciting, it must attain some sort of emotion. And that emotion doesn't have to be reserved for love.

There is a vast, colorful array of feelings that can be channeled into sex, and we need to feel something for sex to satisfy; after all, sex is psychology, right?

Therefore, we need a semblance of emotion -- even if it's a one-night stand.

Great sex is derived from out-of-control frustration, heaps of joy, thrilling recklessness, vehement disagreement (and yes love, of course), anything that pulls the passion out of you.

Otherwise sex is as empty as a reality TV show -- something to numb out to that you will forget 10 minutes after consuming.

When there is no start, there is no finish

It's impossible to finish something unless you've started it. It's logic.

When there is no pleading, there is no pleasing

Don't toss us around with the frivolity of yesterday's laundry if you want to please us in an authentic way.

Fervent sex is built on the foundation of making another person want something with such ferocity that he or she is willing and eager to go to drastic measures to get it.

We're not pleased unless we're pleading for your touch.

We're not turned on until we're breathless with cravings, hell-bent with lust. We're not racked with desire unless we're pining for your touch.

In a culture that is so devoid of human contact, let sex serve as the ultimate human interacting. Drive us crazy. Tease us. Invoke us with emotion.